At a meeting of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel held on Monday, 16 February 2015 at 7:00 pm at the Committee Room 1, Civic Centre, Lampton Road, Hounslow. Present: Councillor Linda Green (Chair) Councillor Tony Louki (Vice-Chair) Councillors Candice Atterton, Harleen Atwal Hear, Samia Chaudhary, Mel Collins, Tony Louki, Paul Lynch and Alan Mitchell Zara Qureshi and Robert Was Apologies for Absence Councillor Peter Carey. Kamal Ahmad and Jacqui Corley 150. Apologies for absence, declarations of interest or any other communications from Members Apologies had been received from Jacqui Corley, Co-opted Member and Kamal Ahmad, Co- opted Member. Councillor Atterton had sent apologies for lateness. Alan Adams and Jacqui McShannon had an alternative meeting and gave apologies. Jacqui McShannon did join the meeting for a short time subsequently. Ian Duke gave apologies as he was unwell. The Chair invited any declarations of interest or other communications from members. For Item 5: ‘Arts Provision for Young People’, Councillor Mitchell declared that he wished to talk about the Dramatic Edge project in the London Borough of Richmond and should declare that he had contact with the project in the past and had hosted their events. 151. Minutes of the meeting held on 3 December 2014 The Chair noted that the minutes had been issued late and checked that all members had had the opportunity to read the minutes. It was noted as something to be corrected for the future that the names of the former youth co-opted members had been shown on the agenda front sheet. The minutes were agreed, subject to the following amendment – Councillor Lynch believed that he had sent apologies and it was agreed these should be noted in the record. Councillor Mitchell moved approval of the minutes, subject to the amendment above. This motion was seconded by Councillor Louki. Resolved: That the minutes were agreed as a true record and signed by the Chair. 152. Matters Arising There were no matters arising from the minutes. 153. School Transport Assistance See the report by Councillor Linda Green, Chair of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel and the tabled responses to questions submitted by Scrutiny in advance of the meeting – Agenda Item 4. The Chair introduced Merle Abbott, Head of Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Disability, who was attending the meeting for this item to give an update on school travel assistance and changes to the policy. The issue had come to the Panel’s attention when raised by a parent. The Panel would not look at individual cases but considered that this was an opportunity to address the wider issue of school travel assistance in the climate of cuts and overspend. The Chair invited Merle Abbott to update the Panel. Merle Abbott advised that she had discussed with Ben Knight, the Scrutiny Officer that a suitable approach would be to go through some of the key issues and allow the maximum opportunity for members’ questions. Some data had been requested in advance of this meeting to provide context. The numbers might assist members. This information had been circulated to members at the meeting. Ms Abbott explained that she was speaking of the latest iteration of a policy which had been introduced in 2010/11. Prior to that date if a child had a Statement of Special Educational Needs and needed to go to specialist provision, transport was automatically provided. However, as the numbers increased, this became unsustainable. So in 2010/11 a new policy was introduced involving an assessment each year of the child’s needs. If the child required local authority provision, arrangements would be made. Ms Abbott explained how a child in law was deemed ‘eligible’ for free transport but in London all children of statutory school age could travel by bus free of charge. So a child might be ‘eligible’ but the authority then considered whether the child needed provision beyond the normal public transport. (Zara Qureshi and Mr Was joined the meeting at this point – 7.08 p.m.) The assessment of need looked at the needs of the child, the complexity of the journey and special circumstances. In making the assessment, the department took into account the form completed by the parent and other information available to the local authority, such as information on the child’s disability and information from the school. Ms Abbott explained that statutory guidance advised of issues to be taken into account when making a judgement on travel assistance. In the past the then statutory guidance had been described as a ‘little woolly’ by the judge in a judicial review case. However, the statutory guidance was turned into criteria concerning the eligibility for free transport and the entitlement of the Council to make other arrangements. At this point, the authority introduced something new to the arrangements, namely the use of pick up points. (Councillor Atterton joined the meeting at this point – 7.10 p.m.). Merle Abbott clarified that as numbers increased it became necessary to consider the way the service was delivered to meet the need and its cost effectiveness. Where an assessment showed that a child needed travel arrangements, it was not necessarily the case that the child needed to be picked up from home. In the case of children with physical and medical needs such as children in wheelchairs, the service did continue to collect children from home. However, children with other needs were able to walk a short distance to access transport at a pick up point. In the autumn of 2012, two parents took a judicial review of the decision to introduce pick up points. The judgement of the case was given in March 2013. The parents argued that ‘home to school’ transport meant transport from the child’s home. The authority provided evidence to the court on the rationale behind the decision to use pick up points and the safeguards in place. The judgement ruled that the phrase ‘home to school’ did not require provision from the child’s home to the school in every case. It also allowed the use of pick up points to be imposed rather than consented to by the child’s parents. Ms Abbott raised this matter with the Panel because she understood the parent who had raised school travel assistance with Scrutiny was concerned about the variation in pick up point. She confirmed that pick up points designated were a maximum of half a mile from the child’s home and assessed to be a safe place to wait and be collected. The Chair asked in the particular case what had changed for the child when the change to a pick up point was made. It was explained that the child’s needs had been assessed previously as suitable for use of a pick up point but the previous year there had not been a pick up point assessed to be used. Ms Abbott explained that each year the team refined the practice on the basis of experience and lessons learnt. So for the future in letters to the parents when the authority said that the child has been assessed for a pick up point, they would also say that it was likely that the pick up point would not be the child’s home. This would allow the parents the opportunity to challenge the decision at an early stage. Merle Abbott advised the Panel that the Department for Education had issued new statutory guidance in July 2014. This guidance in some cases led to changes in the decision on circumstances. Every parent in receipt of school travel assistance had been written to in order to advise of the change with the new guidance included as an attachment to the letter. The key change was the section on accompaniment by parents. (Jacqui McShannon joined the meeting at this point – 7.15 p.m.). Ms Abbott explained that the new guidance made it clear that parents were expected to accompany their children to school unless there was good reason why that was not possible. She referred members to paragraph 17 of the new guidance (included in the Scrutiny Panel agenda pack at page 20). Ms Abbott read out to the Panel what the local authority needed to consider in respect of whether the child’s parent could reasonably be expected to accompany the child to school especially where ordinarily it would be expected that a child of that age would be accompanied. The legislation did not just apply to a child with special educational needs so the department would consider what would be reasonable for the parent of a child without a disability, unless the child’s needs precluded them from walking a normal distance. Merle Abbott explained to the Panel that in the borough the census returns showed that there were 15,845 children from Nursery age to Year 3 (so generally aged 8). Up to and including age 8, it was expected that a child could walk up to 2 miles to school. So this was the context for decisions. The key factor was the child’s needs. Where a child was not physically able to walk, arrangements would be made to get them to school without cost, but there were many thousands of children in the borough where it was expected that their parents would get them to school. Included in the new policy was the expectation that the parents would take reasonable action to discharge their duties to accompany a child to school. Councillor Candice Atterton pointed out that one big issue for parents was the need to get another child to an alternative school.